


Dots

by MethylNox



Category: Johnny the Homicidal Maniac
Genre: Emotional Porn, Established Relationship, Gift Exchange, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-08 17:05:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15247890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MethylNox/pseuds/MethylNox
Summary: Life is easy when you learn the rules. Action and reaction. Cause and consequence. Simple rules to follow in order to sail through the sea of shit we call Real Life. Jimmy has it all figured out. But when he meets someone who doesn't get with the program he doubts - and he falls.And maybe this time, just this time... he doesn't want to get up.





	Dots

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VEC777](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VEC777/gifts).



> For Vec

# Dots

Life is easy enough once you learn how to cheat. Saying this may sound arrogant and pretentious, but it is still a solid and real fact, a scientific theory confirmed in flesh and blood by no one else and none other than Jimmy Reeds.

This fact was so etched in his head that if he had paid a little more attention in Science Class he could have written a convincing essay, maybe even a manual with quite precise techniques.

"Jimmy's rules" He would title it. Maybe he could get one of his "colleagues" to do a prologue, maybe Chuey would do it as he doubted that Chico knew how to write.

It would be a small and explicit book. No place for moralistic rhetoric, only those clear and simple rules that had taken blood, sweat and a couple of fractures to learn.

It would start with the first rule and to make an impact on the reader he would make it sound dark and cold:

"Life is nothing but a sea of shit and if you don’t learn to navigate in it then you will inevitably drown. Steal, hurt, hit, scratch and bite, intimidate, twist and shout if necessary because otherwise if you don’t do it you will drown.

These are just scientific facts, nothing personal. "

End of Chapter 1.

However, Jimmy was not a writer. He was a person of action. He had like that been since he was a little boy, sitting in the tiny, dirty, messy living room of his parents' apartment with a dot-to-dot coloring book.

At that time there was nothing else he would like more than to draw lines connecting dots and color whatever would result from it. When he had finished all the cheap books he had, he cried to his mother to exhaustion to buy him more. A couple of days later, and with a red hand marked on the cheek, he realized he would not get them ... At least not by that means.

It was then he launched his first great plan. Others might say that Jimmy was an improvised person. A project of a bad young adult and a sure waste of whatever little talent was lodged his bony structure, but they could not be more wrong. Jimmy was an organized person, he always calculated the risk. The problem was that maybe he was not very good at math.

When he returned home, sitting on his bed, with tears drying on his cheeks, stroking the arm that his father had almost broken with a single punch, Jimmy understood the importance of assessing the risks well and above all, the first golden rule, the number 1:

**Whatever happens, whatever the cost, do not let them catch you.**

The clerk was not pleased when Jimmy stole the coloring books, he didn’t agree with young Jimmy’s idea of justice and immediately snitched on him.

An hour later the boy fell asleep in his little bed thinking about what he had just discovered that day: rules. Rules that should not be broken, principles that govern our lives. Cause and consequence. Action and reaction.

Steal, hurt, hit, scratch and bite, intimidate, twist and shout if necessary, but never, never let them catch you.

With this new expectation life sometimes felt as if it was too much for him. His 17-year-old self could be found shaking in bed from time to time, eyes framed by a thick layer of black eyeliner and contracted pupils. His mind consumed with all the ways his plans could go wrong. Everything around him and everyone he knew was a potential danger. In life there are no friends, one is alone, rule number 73.

He tried to calm himself down by thinking about another rule, the 89: everyone has a breaking point and that can be exploited. When his mother finally left home forever and his father couldn’t distinguish between beer and the yellowish contents of the toilet anymore, Jimmy knew that his old man had already reached that point.

It was easy to escape from the house then. To this day he doubted that his father would have noticed, even after many years later.

When he hit 22 things had changed, he felt more confident. He had already broken some things on his way: some noses, some bones and a couple of self-esteem.

He still remembered, not without some pride, that afternoon under the tree behind his first job, his broken lip dripping blood on the uniform that he was not returning. That supervisor would now think a couple of times before insulting him, not that he would return to this job, but he would surely go there the next day to order something just to establish dominance. 

He would order the most expensive thing, he would then order all the possible sides and then he would complain in such a way as to make any suburb mother blush with indignation. Maybe he would even break something. Jimmy never left things half-done.

Such was life: cause and consequence, action and reaction, revenge and retribution. Jimmy's rules. The sea of shit through which he sailed on his ship made of stolen objects and pieces torn from other ships.

Everything was simple and clear... before Edgar.

At first, Jimmy hated Edgar. Or maybe he just provoked something in him that Jimmy did not want to accept. Maybe he was even a little afraid of him.

Edgar was not governed by that arbitrary and violent game that Jimmy called Real Life. No, he was not sailing through the sea of shit, he was crossing from way above on a plane. But unlike what Jimmy would have done, had he had a plane, Edgar wouldn’t cross it spitting on those who went sailing on their little canoes.  
Edgar was not like that: he threw lifesavers, he threw food at those who could barely navigate. He did not play according to the rules.

Fucking freak.

It didn’t make sense.

The day their lives collided was memorably chaotic. Jimmy was in his thirteenth job: the record store. When suddenly he heard a scandal in the establishment across the street. A man was making a fuss, people were screaming and - were those blood stains on the window?

Jimmy flew out of the record store and was just about to enter the restaurant when he was dragged out of the scene by a man a little taller than him. His glasses were about to slide off his nose as he pulled Jimmy to keep him away.

"Do not go inside! He’ll kill you too!"

But Jimmy wanted to go inside, he really wanted to go inside. However, the stranger was very strong and after a few minutes they were far away from the place. When he finally pulled out of the guy’s grip he noticed that his shirt was wet, Jimmy realized that the man was bleeding, that he was hurt and about to faint on him. The young man took the stranger to the hospital, which fortunately was not far away. 

Why did he do it? Who knows. But neither subtlety nor delicacy was his best attribute. He dumped him in the hospital foyer like a bag of cement and ran off to his decrepit apartment. Action and reaction. The guy was nice to him, maybe he should make sure that at least he didn’t die.

That afternoon he watched the news in the old T.V. that came with the apartment. The massacre had been bloody, there were very few survivors who were now hospitalized. Including his strange new friend. They didn’t show his name on the news, all they said was that he was in a coma. The cops and witnesses were describing the scene, but none of them could describe the murderer well, the situation was a bit... _wacky._

A couple of weeks later he had forgotten the face of his unusual savior almost completely until he received a call. Jimmy never received calls, ever. Who called when texts existed? It was the hospital. Informing him that his "cousin" Edgar Vargas had awakened and that he needed someone to pick him up.

It took Jimmy a couple of seconds to process that information. He vaguely remembered leaving his number in the hospital, under threat of not being let out. But of course, he was not going to go. There was no reason for him to do such a thing. This Edgar guy dressed well, it wouldn’t cost him anything to take a taxi to his house, which was surely full of food and commodities. 

And why had they called Jimmy out of all the people? That guy had been in a coma for two weeks. Hadn’t his family noticed his absence? Had they not looked for him as soon as he disappeared? The situation was strange and made Jimmy think about another rule of life that he hadn’t yet confirmed, the number 149: no good deed goes unpunished.

"Look, I won’t go, ask another person." He hung up before getting an answer.

Minutes later he received a couple of texts from an unknown number.

"Please come for me."

And immediately after...

"I'll pay you."

Oh - Well, the stage changed colors under a different light. Jimmy had lost his job in the record store barely two days ago and rent day was almost due. If nobody had called asking about this guy, then maybe he had no family that looked after him. Maybe he needed a nurse.

Nurse Jimmy.

The idea was intimidating almost even to him, who once cut his own hand while working on one of his knives and spent few days convincing himself that the scab of blood was enough protection for the wound.

But Edgar dressed well, and he would be in bed. And Jimmy's rules told him that there was only one way to go now: steal, hurt, hit, scratch and bite, intimidate, twist and shout if necessary, otherwise you will drown.

"I'll be there in 5."

...............................................................................................................................................................

Jimmy was looking out the window, the full moon’s light hit his pale body and made him look like a ghost captive in a blue room. He couldn’t sleep.  
Behind him, a silhouette moved under the sheets. Edgar was naked and slept soundly, his breathing was slow and steady. Jimmy looked at him with a tired, expressionless face. 

How the fuck did they end up like this?

A long, torturous sigh was the only thing that, along with Edgar's breathing, cut the silence in the room.

...............................................................................................................................................................

Twelve months before, when Jimmy helped Edgar get out of the taxi and into that little house he thought he had won the lottery.  
It was a small but well-located house with a small but well-kept garden in front. What treasure would he find inside? Jewelry, money, maybe even a gun? A guy living alone should have a gun, a girl should have two, rule 86.

His disappointment was huge when he entered it, though, because even when the house was clean and cold, it had nothing that could interest his skilled magic fingers. It was a pretty boring place. And gray. Very gray. Annoyingly ordered, painted with obtuse and pale colors. There were books everywhere, a huge wall clock on one side and a huge, heavy crucifix in another. The furniture was minimalist. The place didn’t have an ounce of personality and it even made Jimmy feel somewhat nervous.

He helped Edgar into his room: another gray room with a huge closet with mirror doors. The bed looked stiff, a television was in front of it. The TV was the only thing that maybe was worth a couple of dollars and it didn’t count since Edgar would stay right in front of it for a few more weeks.

Jimmy rolled his eyes, this had been a mistake. Maybe it wasn’t that no good deed went unpunished, maybe it was just that no good deed was ever rewarded.

Edgar thanked him and pulled out his wallet to pay him.

"I promised you." Edgar kept talking about the accident as he handed him the money, in fact, he hadn’t stopped talking about it since he took him out of the hospital. Jimmy had been quiet, thinking about what he’d find when he got to Edgar’s home, but after the initial blow he was just annoyed.

"I never imagined he was going to pull out those knives... a true piece of art, really, and when he stabbed me with it I didn’t even feel a thing, they were sharper than the devil."

"Uh?" Those last words seemed interesting.

"Oh, I didn’t tell you about the knives, one had this kind of hook at the end, I hadn’t seen one like that since the illustrations of the Egyptian Empire of-... "

So! Turns out that, after all, the guy did have something that Jimmy could be interested in. Edgar told him that if he wanted to, he could explore the next room, where he kept his collection. Jimmy had never seen so many knives and swords together before - was that an ax?

When he returned Edgar gave him a generous amount for his help. "Thank you for taking me to the hospital, I would have died otherwise. And the worst thing is that no one would have noticed, I don’t have any family, not really, nor friends."

Jimmy briefly looked at his reflection in the mirror. 

There he was: a pale, skinny young man, full of acne and freckles, his black eyeliner was starting to run, he was wearing industrial boots and maybe too much fishnet. There he was in the middle of a room painted with all the variations of gray that the human eye could see. He felt out of place, as a spider on a Christmas cake: strange and undesirable.  
He eyed the man on the bed. Edgar had Latin features, brown hair and hazel eyes, an honest smile and calm expression.

"You shouldn’t tell me that, you know." Jimmy's voice felt dry in his throat.

"Excuse me?" Edgar turned his head, curious.

"That you have no family nor friends, you shouldn’t tell that to a stranger. It's dangerous, I could get into your house and kill you with one of those knives, you know?" Jimmy smiled with an uneven row of sharp teeth. That had previously earned him some growls from dogs. "Are not you afraid of that?"  
Edgar looked down, Jimmy was unable to decipher his face until he sat up again.

"It's okay... I have nothing to fear," he said smiling even more warmly than before. "I'll be here for a while, you can stop by anytime and we'll talk more about ancient weapons, would you like it?"

When Jimmy left the house, he made sure to lock it from the inside. He frowned.

"What a weird fuck..." he said to himself as he played with the switchblade he had stolen from Edgar's collection. "You can’t just ignore the rules, he’ll get himself killed in no time, hah."

...............................................................................................................................................................

It was raining outside, and it was very cold, the ghost of Jimmy's breathing was imprinted on the window’s glass. Small drops ran hurriedly through the glass. The young man was cold, very cold, he was naked just like Edgar, but for a reason that he refused to accept he preferred to stay by the cold window instead of in the warm bed, next to the man he had just handed himself over a couple of hours ago.

He tried to brush it off. That place was fine, right? The pain biting his bones wasn’t real, right? And that feeling that climbed up his spine and nestled in his chest and oppressed his throat was not fear, right?

Jimmy was not afraid. He couldn’t be afraid, fear is for the weak (Rule 22) and Jimmy was not weak… right?

The young man frowned and went to bed. It was time to prove himself something.

He stood next to Edgar, for a moment the scene reminded him of a very cheap horror movie with a girl that stands like a zombie next to her boyfriend for hours. He could see the reflection of his naked silhouette in the mirror, his pale skin shone with the blue light that came into the room, his dick hung lazily on his thighs.

He watched Edgar closely. He looked too calm, his lips slightly parted, his breathing was very deep.

What a fool. God, what a tremendous idiot!

To put himself at Jimmy's mercy! To put himself at the mercy of the world! Didn’t he know anything? Didn’t he know about the things that live outside of that blue room? Didn’t he know about the rules?

Why didn’t Edgar follow the rules, for fuck sakes? 

The young man took a pillow in his hands, his nails painted with black polish dug into the soft fabric. He hovered over Edgar and for a moment considered giving him the fright of his life, only as a small retribution for the horrible moment that he was making him go through. Revenge for what he made him feel... and that feeling was... and that was...

Jimmy snorted, frustrated. After that little scene he just couldn’t continue denying it. He was scared.

Until then, the young man had nothing to lose, nothing he couldn’t do, nothing to be afraid of. Nothing very complicated to think about nor anyone to remember when his eyes became aware of any danger that came close to him. There was no rule 89 for him, he didn’t have a breaking point, he had made sure about that! He was unbreakable! 

Until then - until Edgar.

And now he was there, hanging around in another man's room, having a mental argument with him about buying a reinforced padlock for the door.  
Jimmy sat on the edge of the bed and sighed heavily, turned to Edgar and slowly crawled across the sheets until his chin was rested on Edgar’s chest, his arms on each side of the other man’s body.

At every inch that his skin brushed against Edgar’s, he felt his inner engine accelerate. A long-forgotten mechanism hidden within him started to run. It was a secret, neglected and intimate thing and he just couldn’t recognize it. 

Jimmy leaned over Edgar, looking at him like someone who sees an eclipse for the first time, feeling feverish, feeling fire, listening to the sounds of his rules breaking like the very same drops of rain on the window’s glass. Nothing made sense anymore.

...............................................................................................................................................................

A couple of weeks after he had taken Edgar to his home, Jimmy found himself at the same entrance. He was delivering groceries. Well some dumb jerk was delivering groceries and he’d happened to cross Jimmy’s path. After a quick fight Jimmy was now carrying the basket and knocking on the door. His target was that sick-looking axe.

"Come in, come in - what a coincidence!"

The house was the same, Jimmy could swear not a book had been moved. The kitchen was immaculate and while Jimmy dropped the shopping off, Edgar told him all about the new findings on the massacre’s investigation.

"Nobody knows where he is, the cameras couldn’t capture his face, the cops have no idea, if it wasn’t because I keep asking about it I think they would’ve forgotten about it already." Edgar began to put boxes on the shelves of his cupboard. "You didn’t see him, did you, Jimmy?"

"No... you dragged me out of the place before I could even get in. But you know, I would have liked to see him."

"Excuse me?" Edgar arched an eyebrow.

"I mean, look at what the guy did! He fucking painted a Sistine Chapel with guts, I went to the place a couple of days later and they still couldn’t clean everything off the walls. How can a single person achieve that? It's amazing." Jimmy took a kitchen knife and began to draw figures in the air.

"Oh, well- if you put it that way, it is surprising, yeah... But I prefer my guts to stay inside me, and the same goes for all of those people’s." Edgar almost finished storing everything.

"Pff, you didn’t know them, Edgar, right? I knew a waitress from that place, the bitch got me fired from that restaurant, and I hadn’t even done anything wrong yet. I heard they can’t find all the parts of her body yet. It shouldn’t matter that much to you, it's just people."

"Just people?" Edgar closed the last pantry and turned to Jimmy.

"Yes, and people are not good. That's why you must lock the door from inside. People can hurt you. Take this guy as an example! He hurt you too. Don’t you want a little retribution?" Jimmy narrowed his eyes, staring at Edgar.

The man looked at the ceiling, Jimmy couldn’t help looking at the exposed skin of his neck and collarbones, the veins moving in time with his breathing, he swallowed.

"No, not really. He seemed... deranged, tormented. Whatever is happening to him is worse than whatever I went through. Plus, I have a new friend, right?" Edgar smiled at him and Jimmy looked nervously away. "A heaven for me... and a hell for him."

When Jimmy left Edgar's house (without an axe, for now) he knew. He knew that this guy was going to be his obsession for the next few weeks.

He was a peculiar person, despite his harmless appearance it seemed as if a strange aura enveloped him. He had only felt that when he saw the massacre man. Yes, he lied to Edgar. He had seen the man inside the restaurant just before the door was closed. He looked like a skeleton lined with black cloth and blood.

Jimmy found him interesting, fascinating. Something out of the simple patterns that he easily found on any street. A single dot that was left out of the design he had drawn in his dot-by-dot coloring book. He had tried to locate the stranger, but until then he hadn’t had any luck. Chico told him he had a promising track. Jimmy could follow him at that moment, but he decided to leave it for another day. This Edgar guy was even more interesting in a strange, different way.

...............................................................................................................................................................

Edgar smelled of neutral soap and gave off a hypnotizing warmth. Jimmy couldn’t stop staring at him, only a few hours ago they had sex for the tenth or eleventh time.

It wasn’t even planned. They were watching an old 70’s horror movie, one that Jimmy loved and apparently the only kind of horror movie that Edgar tolerated.

Then suddenly he found himself riding Edgar on the bed, it was the first time he was on top and even when Edgar was inside of him, Jimmy felt just about to reach nirvana. The other man was nothing like he appeared to be out of bed. He was possessive, strong, and he made him cry noises that Jimmy didn’t know he could make until then. His big brown hands were holding him in place by the waist, Jimmy was panting and moaning as the decadent sway of his hips plunged deeper and deeper into those of Edgar’s.

Edgar's moans were hoarse and deep. Jimmy closed his eyes and pulled his head back when he felt the man's hand gripping his erection, caressing it, working it as it worked his way slowly and torturously inside Jimmy, almost as if he hated him.

Jimmy could no longer speak, couldn’t form any intelligible words. He had been reduced to incoherent babbles mixed with moans, whimpers and pleads. He tried to go faster but Edgar wouldn’t let him, slowed him with his hands and suddenly Edgar was the one setting the pace, Jimmy felt tears forming in his eyes when Edgar's thumb accelerated the rhythm over his head, his body contracted violently in an intense orgasm.

The young man was about to faint when he felt Edgar's wet hand taking his. His eyes, half open, were fixed on the other man’s, who smiled before biting his own lips and reached climax inside him. Jimmy closed his eyes as well, entwining his fingers with Edgar’s, feeling his orgasm deep inside him.

They took a few minutes to recover. Jimmy cleaned himself in the bathroom and Edgar took off the condom. When the young man returned to the room, however, he did not return to bed.

"It's cold, come back to bed…"

"In a little while." Jimmy sat on the wide windowsill, the clouds were beginning to fall apart.

"... did I hurt you? Are you okay?" Edgar's voice showed concern and he sat up slightly.

Edgar remembered all the times Jimmy had left after they’d had sex. It was not his habit to stay at Edgar's house. He only did it the first time and Edgar begged him to do it more often. The man didn’t understand why he wouldn’t, maybe he just needed to give him more time.

"Are you kidding?" Jimmy looked at him and smirked, "Don’t give yourself that much credit, Vargas."

Edgar returned the gesture, smiling with a frown. "Really? That's not what I heard. You should beg more often, you look great when you do it." The look Jimmy gave him could have sent him back to the hospital "Okay, okay, don’t get mad." Edgar laughed softly but didn’t look away from the pale figure sitting tensely on the windowsill. "Jimmy, it’s freezing for real, don’t take long, okay?"

"Okay..." Jimmy replied absently.

And a couple of hours later there he was, cold as a corpse, on top of Edgar, looking at him like a fawn dazzled by car lights.

How was he going to explain it to him?

How was he going to explain that just a moment ago he’d considered the idea of putting a pillow on his face?

How was he going to explain to Edgar that being there, so close to him, felt like being near a fire that made the devil come out of his body?

How could he make Edgar understand what he’d felt when he took his hand when Jimmy couldn’t even understand it himself?

How was he going to tell him that he had broken the first rule of his manual, the most important and most vital rule for him?

**Whatever happens, whatever the cost, don’t let them ever catch you.**

But he had let himself be caught! Jimmy had let himself be caught and just there, in that moment, in that gray room full of blue light he had realized that.  
Hell, he hadn’t broken just a single rule, he had broken too many, all of them! Every day he stalked Edgar, every afternoon he talked to him, every moment that Jimmy passed by his side made him brake more and more rules and nothing was clear anymore, he had become addict to the habit of looking for him and thinking about him. 

The Real-Life Game no longer made sense. Jimmy felt like that 17-year-old boy again, with his pupils contracted, trembling in his bed, not knowing what to do next, fighting tears.

"Jimmy"

Hearing his name brought him out of his torpor. He was looking at Edgar without really looking at him, the man's dismayed face only made everything worse.

"I-I-" his voice broke and he felt like he was going to die, he felt that he was going to disappear contemplating the brown membranes in Edgar's eyes, he couldn’t speak.

"Fuck, you're frozen." Edgar slid softly out of the bed, moving Jimmy barely.

"No-" The young man whimpered in anguish, reaching for him.

"I'm just going to get a blanket, I’ll be back in a second” Edgar quickly pulled a pair of blankets from the closet and went back to bed, pulling Jimmy towards him. The young man didn’t put up any resistance, something very unusual. Edgar placed him on his chest and pulled the blankets on both. "There. This is better, right?"

Jimmy looked down and curled up tensely on his chest, he didn’t answer.

"You're shaking." Edgar's voice was soft, very soft, Jimmy bit his lips. He didn’t want to cry, he couldn’t, it wasn’t allowed. Edgar sighed deeply, Jimmy felt his breath brushing his temple and the rise and fall of his chest. "Jimmy, if I hurt you I want to know, please." The young man felt the arms of the man surrounding him, he was warm, why couldn’t he stop shaking?

For a moment, Jimmy could feel the tides of life’s sea of shit rising and dragging him violently. Shaking his little boat made of stolen things, tearing it apart. Edgar’s arms felt like a wooden plank to which he clung like a castaway. 

Jimmy whimpered slightly and tried to calm himself.

Edgar's arms closed a little tighter. “Hey, I’m-I’m sorry. If you don’t want to talk about it, that's fine too, okay? That's good too." He laid his chin on the boy's head and stroked his back under the covers.

Jimmy closed his eyes, trying to concentrate on Edgar’s caress. After a few minutes, he opened them and gazed at the closet’s mirror doors. He could barely see his own face, buried between the blankets and the other’s chest. Edgar grimaced with consternation.

The young man wanted to say that he was sorry. He wanted to explain what had happened, but it was impossible for him. A broad and warm hand brushed off a lock of hair from his forehead. Jimmy held his breath, bit the inside of his cheeks and reached out to take Edgar's hand.

His fingers intertwined with Edgar's and in that very moment it hit him.

That afternoon in the tiny, dirty, messy room of his parents' apartment drawing in a dot-to-dot coloring book. Jimmy loved those books. He loved connecting one with two then three and then four. Everything made sense when they were connected. But later in life, few things made little sense anymore. Nothing ever gave him a sensation different from chaos, anger, and the desire to bite back. Nothing except this.

One with two. Two with three. Three with Four. Edgar with Jimmy.

And the rumble of his rules breaking apart in his head, the noises of his boat crashing weren’t important anymore, because he and Edgar made fucking sense and it was the only thing that mattered. 

That secret, intimate and long-neglected mechanism inside of him started running again. 

"Do you feel better? Oh, let me-" Edgar took a tissue and dried his cheeks, Jimmy hadn’t even realized he’d started to cry. "There. Here, do you want to blow your nose?"  
Jimmy wiped himself and curled up, now more relaxed, on Edgar, his forehead was resting on the other's neck. He sobbed silently and hiccupped from time to time. Edgar hugged him and hold his hand again, Jimmy interlaced his fingers so hard that the other man worried that he’d hurt himself.

"... sorry." Jimmy's voice was very thin "I didn’t – I didn’t want to ... I didn’t know - I don’t know ... I don’t know what - " his eyes felt watery again.

"You don’t have to apologize. I'm not going anywhere-- You're fine, you're home, nothing bad is going to happen." Edgar kissed his forehead and stroked his knuckles with his thumb. 

He could feel Jimmy's naked body now completely relaxed. Edgar then understood at least one of the things that the young man could not explain. Edgar leaned over and kissed Jimmy's lips with a long but gentle kiss, his hands still together.

"You're very brave," he whispered as he parted "thanks for staying."

Jimmy wanted to speak, to thank him. But the mechanism inside him, the one that had just started running again and that was working at full throttle now, only let him say one thing.

"I love you."

He quickly hid his face in Edgar's neck, feeling a heat burning his entire face. The room was silent, the mirror reflected a static painting of himself and Edgar, tinted in a deep blue light that was warm in some way. 

Everything fit, everything was perfect, all the points were connected. The pieces of his boat were floating around him, but it did not matter for he had finally found shore. 

Edgar's lips parted, just briefly, to whisper.

"I love you too."

End.


End file.
